Board of Visitors Spotlight: Thomas Chappell
Tom Chappell was a founding member of the Board of Visitors (BoV) for the Department of Mathematics at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in 2018. He served as its inaugural president and is currently the past president. Chappell played a pivotal role in re-establishing the enlarged BoV during 2022-2023.
He earned his bachelor’s degree in education from UT in 1966, majoring in mathematics and physical sciences. He then embarked on a successful business career in information technology, starting with State Farm and IBM. His IT career continued with NLT Corporation, where he managed software developers and participated as a team member implementing software to support a homeowner’s insurance line of business. During his time at NLT, he furthered his education, earning a Master of Arts degree in economics and finance from Middle Tennessee State University in 1975.
He expanded his role in IT pursuits and in technology management with the Coastal Corporation in Houston. While working at Coastal, he won election to the Alief Independent School District school board, where he honed public entity leadership skills. He was then recruited from Coastal by HMSS for his management skills in bringing about the successful integration of divergent departments within an organization and creating a high-functioning group. While at HMSS Inc. Chappell transformed an IT organization that was failing into a progressive department that significantly contributed to the success of the company.
For the remainder of his business career, he formed and managed his own consulting company. He consulted with multiple national and international companies, including performing organizational and technical reviews for the Texas comptroller and the Texas legislature budget board reviewing Texas public school districts, local county governments and appraisal districts, and several independent school districts, helping them improve their business management and IT departments.
Chappell retired from active business and technology consulting in 2010 and subsequently has spent most of his time creating and working with non-profit organizations.